Head turning art
Artist Paul Galligan has created a five piece portrait of such scale and quality it would make your head spin.
Unveiled last Friday, the composition captures the facial expressions of Cavan town’s Nicole Beck, lost in her own thoughts as she turns around. Initially, hair and features blur with movement, but as the series progresses, it clarifies, and resolves in a final image of Nicole smiling in crisp detail.
Remarkably the work was inspired by Marilyn Monroe, for who 2026 marks the centenary of her birth. A builder by trade, in the early 1990s Paul worked on a property in New York belonging to a “photo fixer” for top fashion magazines.
“He showed me the original negative out of the camera that shot Marilyn Monroe doing the twirl over the vent in New York in the famous white dress.”
That series of shots taken by Sam Shaw in 1954 was part of the movie, ‘The Seven Year Itch’ where Monroe exits a cinema and wind from the subway passing below lifts her skirt.
Paul proudly recalls how when the photofixer showed him the series of negatives, he noticed that Monroe was spinning in the wrong direction.
“That went into Bizarre Magazine as a seven page central pull-out,” says Paul, and the series remained lodged in his mind. Ultimately it re-emerged in this subtle homage.
Paul had previously discussed doing a portrait with Nicole, but Covid threw their plans in disarray.
“Since then we had unfinished business,” noted Paul who describes Nicole as “naturally photogenic”.
It was at the Cavan Arts Festival last May, where Paul resumed the idea. He came across a parade noisily making its way through Con Smith Park. Nicole - a world champion hula-hoop artist - was hula-hooping as part of the spectacle. Paul took over 200 shots of Nicole in quick bursts, and amongst them were this series as she performed a twirl.
“That brought me back to what happened with that Marilyn Monroe image,” explains Paul.
The candid nature of the images are a big part of the work’s attraction. With Nicole’s permission afterwards the photos formed the basis of the portrait series.
Measuring five by one metres, it swallows up an entire wall of the gallery. Taking it all in on Friday was quite simply a wow moment. For Nicole it’s more an “Aaaghh!” moment. The Cavan Town woman is both overwhelmed and honoured by the final piece.
“I could absolutely scream all over the place is my reaction, because when would someone take a moment to capture and display the little joys that you have in life? And why would that matter? But it matters so much to me, I’m so honoured and absolutely stoked.”
Nicole loves the “serendipity” of how her simple facepaint for the parade echoed the swish of her hair.
“I could almost tell you the movement I was doing - I can almost feel it. I love it, and the smile at the end.
“It’s moments of concentrating, and being in the moment and then, boom! That was a lovely little moment.”